Mochitsuki Ceremony or Mochi Pounding

Well, we are definitely getting into the culture here in Japan!  We attended a Mochi Pounding ceremony that was put on by the Japanese here at the base.  Mochi is a traditional food served during the Japanese New Year celebration.  Mochi is made of rice that is pounded into a paste, molded into shape and served.  As you can see from the pictures - we were pounding the rice to make mochi.



The kids "pounding the mochi"!

During the celebration, they also had traditional Japanese dancers and of course the drums.



And...some not so Japanese dancers!

 They also had games set up for the kids to play... as you can see Michael was having fun with this toy!

Another tradition is to have your name written in Kanji which is supposed to bring you good fortune for the new year - we each had our names done so hopefully we will be ok!  This is Ally having her name written...

The traditional Japanese decoration - the equivalent of our "Christmas tree" - is called the kadomatsu.  It is bamboo decorated with some pine branches and is really pretty.  We also ate a lot of good food and tried Sake for the first time.  Tony enjoyed it, but it burned going all the way down for me!

Finally, no party could be complete, Japanese or American style without some cotton candy!!!!